RESEARCH PROJECT

Now we're going to start with our researching activity. This research phase will follow a classical experimental research model. If you or your school want to take part in this activity or phase of the Healthy Backs project, you should try to folllow this explanations:

Choose two classes groups of similar age (better if they are from 13 to 16 years old): one ("A") will be the experimental group, and the other one ("B") will be the control group, there is not an exactly number of students per group.

Next step is to make that both groups pass a testing battery. We've uploaded some tools to assist you in this task. All of them are located in this activity folder, and these are the contents:

A guide where the test battery is explained with pictures and short explanations. This battery contains 15 exercises that must be evaluated.

A sheet file where you should write the points that each student of each group has obtain during the test. The sheet file has also an special sheet where you can generate an individual report, but it isn't necessary to do for the research.

There is an extra testing battery that is not necessary to do, but if somebody want to do it (it's a deeper aproach) he or she is free to choose that way (the results can be written in the same sheet and there is another file with the explanations of how to run the extra test and how to measure joint angles using your computer.

For some weeks group A has to follow a Pilates practical program during Physical Eduactions lessons (8 or 10 lessos would be perfect, but you also can try with 6). Group B won't work Pilates at all, they'll follow their school normal program.

At the end of the Pilates program, both groups will be tested again and the four sheets (pre-test A and B; post-test A and B) will be sent to us.

We'll use all the data to generate the colective results and we'll write a second report, as we did with our first investigations. All partners that will have taken part in this phase will be included as authors in this second report.

Please if you have any question or doubt about this process, ask we as soon as possible. It also should be better if you can tell us who is going to participate in the activity.